A Mesa funeral-home operator has ceased operating a body-donation business after an investigation by the state Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers.

Todd Allen of A Legacy Funeral Home told the board that the National Tissue Registry no longer operates out of the business.

The Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers, which regulates funeral directors, dismissed its complaint after a monthlong inquiry into the matter after Allen told members, "We shut it down, and we closed it, and it's no longer in business."

Non-transplant body-donation facilities, also known as tissue banks, have come under increased scrutiny in Arizona in the wake of a cross-country investigation by the FBI, the Arizona Attorney General's Office and other authorities.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Biological Resource Center and other out-of-state facilities handled the bodies as donors intended and whether they properly screened for infectious diseases. The national Center for Disease Control and Prevention last month announced it was investigating potential exposures to HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis from blood and body tissues of cadavers infected with the diseases.

It is not illegal for funeral homes to operate tissue banks out of the same facility, said Rudy Thomas, funeral board director.

However, he said, it could present a conflict of interest for the funeral home: "You could get into a situation where someone comes in for a cremation, they get the price and realize they can't afford it and the funeral operator says, well, 'I have a different method — you could run it through my body-donor organization.' That's not right. They (customers) should be able to choose based on their own free will."

Thomas said this is the first time the board has been confronted with such an issue.

State regulators initiated their inquiry into Allen after other funeral establishments told authoritie she was operating a tissue bank out of the Mesa funeral home.

NEWSLETTERS

Get the AZ Memo newsletter delivered to your inbox

We're sorry, but something went wrong

Get the pulse of Arizona -- Local news, in-depth state coverage and what it all means for you

Public records state that Allen said the tissue bank was closed on March 28. Weeks later, on April 16, Thomas and investigator Gary Hendrix visited the Mesa funeral home and "did not find any evidence" the tissue bank was operating at the site.

State officials were told the tissue bank was moved to downtown Phoenix,and Allen told the board Tuesday that the tissue bank is not "owned by anyone in the Allen family."

Allen did not return a call from The Arizona Republic seeking comment.

The board also closed an investigation into funeral director Kristen Lietz-Westwood. The complaint alleged that she had employees sign documents who were not authorized to do so. Lietz-Westwood is a witness in the investigation into Biological Resource Center.